In an age where we have made numerous technological advances that are meant to save us time, we find ourselves busier than ever. We live in a non-stop culture that puts supreme emphasis on “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” and as a result, the average American works a 47 hour work week. Even more so, about 39% of men and women in this country work over 50 hours a week.
[featured-image single_newwindow=”false”]
After that comes driving kids to sports practice and trying to get chores done at home. What does this mean for the spiritual life? The most common answer to “why don’t you pray on a daily basis” is “I have no time.”
Yet, is that really an excuse? Jim Beckman in his book God, Help Me: How to Grow in Prayer
“The way we spend our time tends to reveal what we place value on. One author I read on this topic observed with amusement that no one ever died of hunger because of not having time to eat. There are things we do with our time every day, and if we track our activity, we’ll see what is truly important to us. If prayer is something we place value on, we’ll make time for it. (14) [Emphasis Added]
So the short answer is no, having “no time” is no excuse for not praying. We simply are challenged to make time. In the end, it doesn’t always have to be a Holy Hour; it could simply be a “holy half-hour” or a “holy five minutes.” Additionally, we don’t always have to be in church to pray.
St. Paul urges us to pray “without ceasing” and that certainly does not mean we are in the church 24/7. It simply means finding the time during your day to praise and thank God for everything you have and asking Him for help to be faithful to your vocation in life.
The easiest way (though sometimes the hardest way) to “find” time for prayer is to wake up earlier or go to bed later. Those two bookends to our day are typically under our control. We decide when to wake up to go to work. So if you want extra time to pray, wake up 10 minutes earlier and spend that time in prayer. Or, if you are a night person, turn off the late night TV shows and pray.
Why?
But why should I make prayer a priority? Well, just like any relationship, if you don’t talk to a person, you don’t know them and it is harder to love them. Same way with God. If we don’t talk to Him or listen to Him, we will never get to know Him or have any desire to love Him.
Additionally, prayer is a great source of spiritual energy that keeps a person strengthened throughout the day. Saint Bernard put it this way:
“If you are wise, you will be reservoirs and not channels.…The channels let the water flow away, and do not retain a drop. But the reservoir is first filled, and then, without emptying itself, pours out its overflow, which is ever renewed over the fields which it waters.” (16) [Emphasis Added]
Making time to pray allows us to be a reservoir, filling up with God’s grace, so that we can have the strength to be a witness of Christ to the world. A channel lets everything pass through, retaining nothing, and so no grace is kept in reserve. The grace of God simply passes by without us reaching out to keep it for ourselves.
This holds true on the battlefield as well. If a soldier does not take care of his physical health, he will be completely demolished when the enemy storms the battle line. The soldier must take time to work out, build up his strength, eat enough food and get a sufficient amount of sleep to be truly effective in defeating the enemy. This is true even more so on the battlefield of the soul.
If prayer is not a priority, the Enemy will come right in and have no trouble at all.
So be vigilant! Be a reservoir, not a channel.